Publisher/developer: Lucky Pause Format: PC/Mac Origin: US Release: 2014
There’s a new challenger in the resurgent adventure puzzle genre. In its systems and structure, Homesick makes no obvious attempt to break with classics like Myst. Progression is achieved through the solution of cryptic clues and the proper application of items, and each puzzle defeated hints at more of the story. So while Homesick’s skeleton is familiar, its clothing is not.
The precise setting of Homesick is unclear, part of the mystery to be unravelled. Ostensibly, it’s some kind of municipal building – a school or a hospital, perhaps. Somewhere unremarkable at any rate, somewhere grey and generic. Developer Lucky Pause brings a beauty to austerity that you wouldn’t guess existed – the richness and fidelity of the texture work is of Crytek calibre. Crumbling walls have true depth to their crevices, not just appearing but feeling fragile, as if sudden movement could provoke a slew of plaster. You can sense splinters on the surface of aging fittings.
Comparisons with Crytek end there. Lucky Pause is a tiny two-person team ‒ Morgan Wyenn, in charge of PR, and Barrett Meeker, who handles the artwork and coding. Barrett’s background in high-end graphics explains Homesick’s visual feats.
“It’s been a big goal for me to keep the level of detail I was used to creating for game cinematics,” says Meeker, “a lot of time is spent on the materials and textures. They’re different from games that use a single texture for a wall stretched from top to bottom, which can look great until you walk right up to it, then it gets blurry. In Homesick I wanted to take a different approach. I’m using complex materials that blend between different smaller textures.”
Homesick is set in a single building. With a singular focus, Lucky Pause has been able to instil a firm sense of place. Occluded hints at the world outside enhance the air of mystery.
This technique demands additional effort over traditional texture work, but the results are justified. You can rub your face in the furnishings without a hint of pixelation.
Homesick doesn’t quite pass for a big-budget development. With one man at the keyboard, ambition has had to be kept in check, and assets soon recur. The setting helps in this instance; repeating furniture and identical rooms aren’t jarring discrepancies in a municipal building. It’s a concession to budget, but a smart one. “I am keeping it small compared to triple-A games to keep it manageable,” says Meeker. “But part of the goal of having so much detail is variation ‒ we have different areas in the building that help create an emotional arc as you go through them.”
What is remarkable given the passion in the artwork is that Homesick remembers it’s a game to be played. The hallmarks of the cinematographer are there ‒ you move at a sedate pace, and adjusting your mouse brings the camera round in a smooth, graceful pan ‒ but this is a cohesive 3D space which is yours to explore. The bittersweet air of decay is enhanced by dust motes and drifting Bokeh highlights set against the mournful tinkling of a lone piano. Everything combines to suggest that this is a real place. You’re somewhere that mattered to many people, a place now decayed and forgotten, but important to you. The environment itself compels you to follow its hallways and uncover the story underlying this sensation.
A twilight world connects Homesick’s separate puzzles, with actions on one plane being felt in the other. At present, you use it only to open doors, but it’s a promising mechanic nonetheless.
“A lot of people separate out the mechanics of a game from the art, but I think they are very much linked … With the detail, we can get players thinking about the smaller things. In the first room, for example, to open the door you have to turn the deadbolt first to unlock it. It’s a small touch to help get players thinking.”
Homesick’s look and feel has been keenly honed, even at this early alpha stage. However, the experience is threatened by the genre’s most persistent problem. Puzzle games must be coherent from every perspective; any idiosyncratic leap of logic will frustrate players. Meeker has borne this in mind, but sometimes Homesick slips up. After solving a simple but elegant introductory puzzle, moving on to the next proved a challenge in itself. At this point, Homesick wants you to sleep, revealing a darker reality used to traverse hallways that are blinding in daytime. But the step is unintuitive; you have no reason to assume that it’s time for a nap. Homesick needs a way to signal its core mechanics without disrupting the beautiful solitude.
Homesick is a remarkable experiment. Amid a legion of stylised platformers, a two-person studio is doing the work of industry powerhouses. Its opening puzzles are pleasing, but care must be taken to remain consistent and compelling across the length of the adventure. Even if it fails, however, Homesick could alter how indies see their limited budgets and prompt them to dress a little sharper.
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